WIDOW'S WEB - Jennifer Estep
The Elemental Assassin Series, Book 7
Pocket Books
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5177-5 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5179-9 (eBook)
September 2012
Urban Fantasy

Ashland, Southern City – The Present

Gin is enjoying dinner at an exclusive restaurant with her lover Owen when a beautiful woman enters. After gaining everyone's attention but Owen's, who is lost in his dessert, the woman walks over to their table, ignoring Gin. Much to Gin's surprise, Owen knows Salina, and it is obvious to Gin that this is a former girlfriend. One with a powerful hold on Owen.

Gin is an elemental of stone and ice; the assassin known as Spider, now retired; and the owner of the Pork Pit, a restaurant left to her by her mentor. The more Gin discovers about Salina, the more tenuous the situation becomes. While she certainly feels jealousy and worry about her relationship with Owen, it is clear Salina is a powerful water elemental, and a murderer. Gin witnesses Salina sucking the water out of the body of one of her victims. Owen, however, is blind to Salina's faults. Fifteen years ago he beat up his best friend, a fifteen-year-old boy, for supposedly raping and beating Salina. Now that former friend, Phillip Kincaid, a local mobster, hires Gin to cater a party on his riverboat casino, the Delta Queen . This is where Gin witnesses the murder take place. Afterward, Kincaid suggests Gin kill Salina. Eva, Owen's sister, also fears and hates Salina. It all goes back to when all the aforementioned were abandoned children living on Ashland's mean streets.

With her police sister Bria's sanction and her foster-brother Finn's aid, Gin must discover Salina's purpose in returning to Ashland. It soon becomes clear there are two spiders in this story, Gin, and a black widow who uses her Southern charm to get what she wants. That the woman wants Owen back is obvious, and just as obvious is the fact that if Gin kills Salina, she might lose Owen anyway.

In violent Ashland, killing is preferred over calling the too-often corrupt police, but Gin's character develops a sense of balance between good and evil in these stories. She is poised between unrepentant killer and caring individual—an often hard to make parallel, but well done by author Jennifer Estep. Ashland is an interesting world that mixes modern flair with old-fashioned vigilante justice. Owen, Finn, Bria, Sophia, and Kincaid are strong, often dysfunctional characters who help capture the reader's interest and sympathy. The daunting villainous elementals and the character interactions create strong emotional drama that keep these stories from becoming only blood and killing action sagas, although tense struggle is part of the enchantment. Maybe readers just find killing bad people in stories therapeutic. The Elemental Assassins series is escapism at its best and recommended to all enthusiasts.

Robin Lee